|
Old Falls Street - East Mall Project
Niagara Falls, New York
OLD FALLS STREET - East Mall Project
USA Niagara, in partnership with the City of Niagara Falls, is advancing the Old Falls Street reconstruction project. The Project consists of two individual, but related components included in USA Niagara’s 2005 Downtown Niagara Falls Multi-Modal Access Program as outlined below.
Old Falls Street. Falls Street was once the economic center of the downtown tourist area and this Project component is intended to help recapture some of this former setting. Old Falls Street currently passes through roughly $40 million in new downtown investment; its reconstruction will help complement this new development and open opportunities and access to build off of the success of the now-completed Third Street Project.
Improvements along Old Falls Street between Third Street and Rainbow Boulevard North (to be re-named First Street) will include new paving, full-depth roadway reconstruction as needed, drainage systems, new granite curbing and accessible curb-cuts. In addition, the Project includes introducing limited vehicle access, while maintaining suitable access for pedestrians/bicyclists, including:
- Restoration of vehicular lanes designed to encourage low-speed traffic (e.g., pavers and/or patterned concrete) limited to one travel lane with no on-street parking;
- Curb-side drop-off areas (e.g., cut-outs) and decorative paving;
- Built-in measures for closing off the street for festivals/events;
- Pedestrian-scaled lighting (i.e., continuation of the lighting specifications outlined in the Third Street and Rainbow Boulevard North/South projects);
- Street furniture (benches, trash receptacles, bicycle racks, bollards, etc.) and landscaping.
Comprehensive Downtown Wayfinding System. Current directional signs in downtown Niagara Falls are characterized by over 400 individual, and often redundant, highway-scale signs that obscure the downtown landscape. In many cases, the amount of information trying to be conveyed (e.g., roadway route numbers, trailblazers to the interstate system, wayfinding to individual attractions, etc.) makes this collection signs inordinately large, confusing, and unattractive. This Project element will include design of a destination wayfinding system and recommendations for removal and/or redesign of existing highway-scale signs where necessary.
The downtown Wayfinding System is intended to be the first step toward a larger citywide system. Project designers will be coordinating with various stakeholder groups to develop a workable series of sign specifications that could be applied by the City of Niagara Falls as a template to other key areas of the City (e.g., “Little Italy”, Main Street corridor, etc.).
|
